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Given that the cross of Great Notion with daughters of Not For Love has so far produced four stakes winners from just 23 foals of racing age, he was a slam-dunk decision as the 2019 mate for Wild For Love in this Housatonic Recommended Mating.
As the best stallion in Maryland for the last few years, Great Notion has plenty to recommend him with just about any mare, but his 17.4% stakes winners/foals from daughters of Not For Love is astounding. That success is indicative of Great Notion’s results with Mr. Prospector-line mares more generally, as he has a total of nine stakes winners from 79 foals (11.4%) out of dams by Mr. Prospector’s sons and grandsons.
Looking from the perspective of Not For Love as a broodmare sire, meanwhile, his daughters have also had considerable success with Mr. Prospector-line stallions more broadly: there are six stakes winners from 155 foals (an excellent 3.9%) out of Not For Love mares and sired by grandsons or great-grandsons of Mr. Prospector.
Wild For Love’s dam is a daughter of the Broad Brush stallion Concern, and while there are not yet any stakes winners by Great Notion with Broad Brush on the dam’s side, there are four winners and one placed runner from five to race by Great Notion out of mares by either Broad Brush or one of his sons, so that is a combination that holds some promise as well.
Wild For Love, meanwhile, is from a female family that has produced a handful of hard-knocking and successful campaigners by Mr. Prospector sons and grandsons: she is a half-sister to the eight-time winner Fara’s Kid (by Lemon Drop Kid), plus a pair of other winners by Lemon Drop Kid and Curlin, respectively, while Wild For Love’s dam, the multiple stakes winner Sticky (by Concern out of Grade 3 winner Hair Spray), is a half-sister to fifteen-time winner Lemon Spray (another by Lemon Drop Kid) and to thirteen-time winner Roy L. (by Empire Maker). Additionally, Hold (a half-sister to Sticky by Include) is the dam of a stakes-placed winner by Fiber Sonde (by Unbridled’s Song), while Hair Spray has a stakes-winning half-brother by Thunder Gulch, and a stakes-placed half-sister by Empire Maker. So the female family also gives every indication that a Mr. Prospector-line stallion is the right way to go with Wild For Love.
Physically, this pairing is pretty much a case of like-to-like, as both Great Notion and Wild For Love are well-balanced, medium-sized horses, and they were both also as their best as sprinter/milers on dirt — though there is enough grass prowess on among Great Notion’s offspring and those of Not For Love’s daughters to suggest that this foal could also have some talent on the turf.
The 2018 Maryland Million Turf features a Great Notion/Mr. Prospector exacta of Talk Show Man & Phlash Phelps
Phlash Phelps, by Great Notion out of a Not For Love mare, wins the 2016 Maryland Million Turf
Goodonehoney, by Great Notion out of a mare by a grandson of Mr. Prospector, wins the 2018 Weber City Miss